Wildfire smoke
2022-09-12 Spokane-Spokane Valley, WA wildfire smoke episode
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 103.5 µg/m³ near Spokane across 1 covered metro home to 604,962 people.
Counting the extra PM2.5 above each metro's typical day, this event handed the average affected resident ≈ 4.4 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 2.6 million cigarettes. An awareness illustration of outdoor exposure at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette (Berkeley Earth), counting only the event's ranked days; not a medical dose.
Episode peak
-- cigarettes
The smoke map's scale, replayed over this event: the surface interpolates between covered metros' daily records, framed to the affected region. Hover for a reading, click a metro to pin it to the card. Days a monitor did not report draw nothing.
What happened, in the record
Qualified supplied evidence supports wildfire smoke as the root cause of this event. The supplied record does not establish a coherent shared occurrence with neighboring candidates, so the episode remains event-specific.
Affected metros
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spokane-Spokane Valley, WA | 103.5 µg/m³ | 4.7 | Sep 12, 2022 | #21 of its top days |
"Cigarettes, whole event" totals a metro's ranked event days at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette: what a person outdoors there breathed across the event, as the illustration. "All-time standing" is where this episode's days sit in each metro's ranked record (worst-area measure, since 1999). Full local context is on each metro's Air Records page.
The evidence
Official records
- NOAA Storm Events Wildfire, IDAHO, Sep 1, 2022 "The Ross Fark wildfire began in Camas County August 14th and spread into Blaine and Custer Counties in late August into early September. It was timber litter, timber and short grass that fueled the fire. By September …" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dust Storm, ARIZONA, Sep 11, 2022 "The remnant mid-level circulation of what was Tropical Cyclone Kay was located over southern California. This led to southerly flow across Arizona, which helped increased moisture and instability with moisture values pea…" record →
EPA AQS monitor qualifier 1
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 48 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2022-09-12, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
NWS Air Quality Alert 1
- Archived Spokane Air Quality Alert, September 12, 2022 The multi-agency Spokane alert explicitly identified wildfire smoke during the September 12 particle-pollution event. IEM is the archive, not the official system of record.
Agency and publisher pages 2
- Wildfire smoke affecting air quality could worsen as high atmospheric pressure starts building Saturday The Spokane Regional Health District reported on September 12 that smoke drifting from area wildfires was affecting Spokane air quality and could worsen under high pressure.
- Air quality in Spokane reaches very unhealthy Monday as smoke blankets area Contemporaneous local reporting says smoke from multiple fires in Washington, Idaho, and Montana was funneled into Spokane and drove unhealthy to very unhealthy air quality.
Status and provenance
Research preview: this record carries research-only status and its boundaries, cause, and name may change as evidence review completes. Grouping policy common_sense_root_cause_grouping.v2. The cause label reflects the assembled evidence above, not an IAQng detection formula.